I think its fair to say that there is so much conflicting information on the net on how to build a massive following. Like any topic on the net, ‘experts’ insist on voicing their input no matter how ridiculous the advice sounds.

Countless blogs exist stating that learning how to use twitter, face book, Google + more effectively is the key to becoming rich and famous, personally I disagree. I have been in countless bands, businesses, charities etc all using face book, twitter, my space, Google + etc and here I am still poor L .

The problem with all these ventures was the content. The band was shit, many of the businesses were invisible, and the charity… well basically its in the same boat as the business. These ventures have taught me quite a bit, manly that there is a lot more to building traffic that just using face book or twitter well.

I think as the paradigm shifts more focus is being placed on content rather than promotional strategy. In Jun 2011 we conducted a 3 month experiment. Essentially during this time we contacted some of the biggest blogs, sites, stores etc as well as looking at our own site and marketing plan to explore what percentage of traffic is due to your promotional tactic. Out of the 100 businesses we contacted we found out that <20% referrals are due to social network campaigns. Well it was actually 9.8% of total referrals.

So ask yourself with this info, is it really worth wile injecting all you time into building that ultimate promo campaign, or will you look at the bigger picture?

The shift now is on being EPIC

. Personally I now think we are on the right page. So essentially in the word of the great Corbett Bar, if you aren’t building a blog, replace the word ‘write’ for ‘create’ either way the formula is the same.

By making note of the things that inspire people, change lives and create value you can tap into your epic-ness. All the promotion in the world wont help if your site is shit. This includes, but is not limited to ‘eye candy’. Keep your layout sharp and your content amazing. Obviously however, every saga has a beginning. One cannot expect to start writing epic overnight. Check out,

There is no point wasting time writing the same shit that thousands of other people write about every day. One of the greats for writing epic shit in my opinion is Steve Pavlina. He has amassing a monthly traffic of 700,000 and many other impressive stats all because his writing oozes epic-ness.

What about design, branding, promotion and all the other stuff?

Of course, it all helps give your site the edge over the millions of others out there, however if your content isn’t ‘golden’ then your bounce rate will be ridiculous. By making the content of your site as good as it can possibly be, then you can worry about all the other stuff. The focus should defiantly be on the content. It has to be said that ‘eye candy’ can give you the edge, especially with regards eCommerce. A tastefully designed site can not only build a following, but build trust, always remember that you content will do far more than design any day.

“Great content can promote itself but even the best promotion can’t create great content“. – Corbett

It is important that you don’t confuse epic with long. There is an abundance of long, boring dribble out their, which serves only to age us terribly. Usually more time and a higher word count is needed to create something truly moving, however not always so. Don’t get caught up into thinking that just because you spent a week writing a 5000 word post it we become an overnight sensation. Be inspirational, entertaining, quirky, useful and honest.

Experience and Epic content.

Writing or creating epic content doesn’t just come from imagination, or an epiphany overnight, it typically comes from real life experiences. Once again I direct you attention to the great Steve Pavlina who’s epic-ness drawing from real life experiences know no bounds. Steve published an article ‘how to build a high traffic site (blog)’, in this article he explains how he uses his own life experiences to create his epic content, fearless of peoples thoughts… and they love him for it. Once again reflecting on my last post ‘publishing articles even if they are shit, we have a few reasons why you should’.

So with the new Year drawing near, what is my planning for the blog? Well simple… I’m going to try me best to write epic shit.

So I leave you in the words of Corbett;

“The next time you start wondering why you aren’t getting tons of new readers, visitors or subscribers, the next time you wonder why no one is sharing your stuff, don’t start looking to Twitter or Facebook or StumbleUpon or Digg for the answer. Instead, start by asking yourself one simple question:

Am I writing (or creating) epic shit?”

— Tony

Thanks for reading, please comment and follow us on twitter/face book or whatever you into.. More than likely we’re there too. J

There is loads of blogs out there recommend that blogger publish ‘Valuable content’ and essentially stuff that is worth being read. Its obvious that if you’re a writer or whatever you probably have 2-3 posts sitting in the pipe line. Wither it be scrawl in a jotter, half assed post in word, and a final draft sitting in wordpress. What’s stopping you from hitting publish to get the job done.

Maybe it s because you afraid of your readers. I know myself, and im sure many others feel the same way, every time you hit the publish button, or at least are ready to hit it… loads of questions surface.

What if they don’t like it? Publish it anyways.

What if they get mad? Publish it anyways.

What if they think I’m stupid? Publish it anyways.

Hit publish regardless, and here is the reasons why,

People Remember Your Best Work – Not Your Worst

For many bloggers the #1 fear is that if you publish a bad article or whatever, and relationship you have with you current readers will disappear and be forever braked as spam. Its true that they are countless blogs that suggest you only publish you very best time and time again. Indeed a notable goal, providing your best content time and time again, however this is not always the best strategy.

I have searched countless blogs before I started to write, so take a look at some of my earlier posts, a mere shadow of some of the greats. However regardless of the poor writing quality and sometimes subject matter, they still get peoples attention and build some sort of rapport with the readers.

If you wait to create amazing posts, rather than publishing consistently you will have very little on your site. I know sounds hypocritical coming from me, with only 2 articles online… but this is the rule I follow from the great Joal Runyon. In his words;

“Nobody holds any of the terrible posts I’ve written over my head because most of them aren’t actually terrible, they’re just not very good. I am not advocating mediocrity, but unless you consistently put out crap without a care and learn nothing from it, you’re much better off getting in the habit of creating and publishing rather than trying to create stellar posts without ever publishing anything.”

Very rarely do readers read a bad post and completely delete you account. What is most likely to happen is that they simply mark it as read in their inbox and leave it at that. Trust me, I do this too. :s

On the other hand however, if you never create epic work, you will find yourself being easily forgotten. Perhaps an epic amount of effort is what is needed in every post and the end result will eventually end. Another great quote from Corbett of ‘Think Traffic’

“write epic shit. but in order to get there, you first need to create epic amounts of shit.”

You Have No Idea of the outcome

I don’t think any blogger knows quite what will happen when an article is published. It could be frowned upon by all, hated by millions and leave you a ruin, unlikely, well maybe if you write on the most controversial topic you can find, just to throw a sinister twit on the whole think. It unlikely that the very mention of your name or site will become a social faux pas or taboo. After all the majority of people don’t know what will come of their post. For example I recently posted an article; ‘Amazon Vs eBay; or do they both shit on the little guy’, I really didn’t know what to make of this article, I know that thousands of people are in love with Amazon or eBay and probably an equal amount hate them.. But to be honest, nothing much really happened from this post L much to my disappointment.

Thus highlighting the fact that you just don’t know.

One blogger in particular Steve Pavlina, who writes about self help and personal development stuff published an article entitled ‘How to cook brown rice’In 2007. Check out the stats… not so bad for such a random subject. J

You Get Better

Simple enough. I suppose its common sense, the more you write, the better you get. But only if you publish your work, no matter shit, then you can gauge feedback, stats etc. as well as demonstrating to your readers that your online human I suppose.

You wont become a novelist overnight, or start of writing stories that move people so deeply that they want to change their lives completely. Its essentially like any undertaking in life, wither it be music, art, drama whatever, only with practice will you improve. Its is no accident that people who create the best ideas also create the most ideas (as well as some of the worst).

You will never know who your audience is until to hit publish.

– Tony

We would love to know your thoughts and experiences, so leave us comments, or drop us an email. Also we would be smiley faced if you could follow us on twitter and face book, or of course Google+ if that’s what your into J

I think it is fair to say that the net is full of a wealth of knowledge and information about anything one cares for. But the real question is, ‘are all the articles on traffic you read helpful, or just a waste of time’? Google has about 83,600,000 search results for the term, “how to drive web traffic”. Safe to say, more than one person can digest in a lifetime. Therefore what I am going to do in this post is essentially outline some of the articles and tips that I have came across which essentially ‘stand out’ form the current paradigm as well as some old favourites.

Let’s go over a few of the more ‘tried and tested’ tips about.

Go for quality not quantity.

Some might say we’re gifted with the internet and the arrival of ‘the modern age’, I for one think that is the case; however the amount of trash on the net is madness. I once read an article stating that the #1 way to build internet traffic is via a loan or cash input of £50,000 to marketers. As if a budding entrepreneur will have £50K to drop on advertising. No … What many blogs suggest is simply write about something that is worth writing about. One must really ask oneself, is my content worth being read by millions?

Be everywhere.

Many blogs and articles on the net make reference to this point. Nobody wants to be that guy who’s left out of the loop. So by simply plastering your material everywhere you can you can create a desperate following of people who don’t what to be ‘that guy’. I’ll be honest I haven’t tried this strategy myself. Seems pretty straight forward but time will tell.

Create timeless not time bound content.

Essentially this is up to you. There are two messages you can take from this tip. Many bloggers including the very influential Steve Pavlina suggest that one should write content on a deeper level that is not limited by the current paradigms, but rather content which readers can refer to 10, 20 years down the line. This is a more long term strategy for building solid roots on the net. However on the other hand, joining in on the massive collection of current topics which are currently being covered, celebrities, politics, world events etc. can be a way a generating quick traffic, but with a high bounce rate.

As Pavlina states;

“…timeless content connects with people at a deeper level than time-bound content. The latter is meant to be forgotten, while the former is meant to be remembered.”

Use ‘call to actions’ within your post.

Generally people respond better when you make it really easy for them to engage with your blog. If you have a Face book ‘like’ button tucked away in the corner of your blog, chances are they aren’t going to follow you on face book. If they engage with your article, and you make it easy for them to find the ‘like’ button or whatever, with a little nudge then they are more likely to click it. After all, worst that can happen is they don’t. Facilitate your audience as much as possible.

Write for people, not search engines.

This might sound a bit contradictory to the general rule regarding the net, but after all there is little point writing an article full of keywords and sentences that don’t make sense. Referrals are a better way to build solid, consistent traffic to your blog/site as opposed to search engines which pile your articles into the pot of 86,000,000 others.

This is essentially the first blog I have ever written, and I am keen to see how the wealth of information I have absorbed regarding web traffic over the past few weeks will affect this blog. I understand that as it relatively new, it will take time, I will however be sure to keep you in the loop. I welcome you feedback.

Please follow us on face book / twitter or the blog to get all you updates. Also if you have any strategies that you have come across, be sure to let us know.